1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to managing computers, including computer networks and devices coupled thereto. Some embodiments are usable with deployment solutions and/or task sequences that are used to deploy operating systems, software and the like to multiple network devices such as computers and to manage such network devices.
2. Description of Related Art
Due to the size and complexity of many operating systems, software and/or image deployment (e.g., installation of an operating system (O/S) on a computer) can be time-consuming and involve many manual steps, thus being expensive in terms of time and required human resources, and subject to human error. Installing additional software on the computer after the operating system is installed makes the installation even more time-consuming. Also, as the number of computers on which operating systems, etc. are being installed increases, the time needed to deploy to all of the computers similarly increases.
To solve some of these problems, systems management software applications and products, including so-called deployment solutions, are used to deploy operating systems (e.g., Microsoft's Systems Management Server (SMS) and System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM)). These software products provide remote control, patch management, software distribution, O/S deployment, network access protection, remote computer administration, etc. However, such earlier approaches to operating system deployment suffer from several shortcomings. Moreover, other deployment solutions like Ghost, ImageX and others also suffer from similar shortcomings. For example, hardware independent imaging solutions present driver-related issues that are cumbersome if not practically impossible to solve. Many device drivers available to imaging solution users are poorly written (e.g., having incorrect or incomplete instructions) and require substantial time to correct and/or verify. Moreover, users encounter problems with the quantity of drivers added to SCCM, for example, with regard to the character length of the DevicePath. Administrators in some prior approaches must create and/or maintain Driver Packages for subsets of PC collections. Networks possessing a large number of PC/machine makes and/or models encounter trouble when the O/S deployment process reaches a limit with regard to what it can handle with drivers and simply (and without error) ceases to consider additional drivers past a given point.
Moreover, although certain drivers are included with any O/S release, all drivers needed to operate all of the various hardware components on all makes and models of a given network's PCs and other machines are not necessarily included in the standard O/S driver set. Consequently, network administrators using previous software products, such as SCCM, must create and maintain their own driver packages, often requiring that they segregate driver packages (e.g., by make and model of machine). Thus an administrator for a modestly sized network can either create and maintain a single driver package containing every driver potentially required by any network machine, or alternatively the administrator must create and maintain driver packages containing subsets of all drivers (e.g., where each driver package is used for a different class of network machines). This imposes a substantial ongoing burden on the network's administrator. In either case, the administrator must have the needed driver package(s) prepared and available prior to O/S deployment requiring access to such driver packages. Beyond creating and maintaining their own driver packages, each administrator also is responsible for only including drivers that are known to be effective in operating the hardware for which they are intended within the context of each operating system for which they are intended. In addition to the burden imposed on the administrator, downloading large driver packages to target devices on the network during O/S deployment can substantially impair the speed and performance of the deployment system by requiring copying and/or transmission of large and sometimes massive driver files. Other problems and shortcomings are well known to those skilled in the art.
It would advantageous to have a methods, apparatus, computer-readable media, etc. to deploy operating systems and the like that would avoid these problems and shortcomings.